Blog About Animals

A while back on my main blog, The Random Forest, I posted a post titled Lion Hugging Woman. That post got quite a good feedback and along with the other animal posts that I had written was one of the main things that made me start Blog About Animals.

I thought the story of the woman being hugged by the lion was very original but after searching a little I have found absolutely tons of examples of lions being affectionate. Here are my 3 favorites.

1. A full grown male lion in Columbia Zoo, welcomes back his old owner with a big hug, awwww

Several years ago this woman found a sick, malnourished lion cub in the jungle. She took the cub home and fed him and brought him up until he was too big to keep anymore. Then she made arrangements with a zoo in Colombia to take the lion. Here’s a video of what happened when she went to visit him in the zoo for the first time:

2. Christian the Lion, reunited with the man who raised him, one year after release

Back in the swing sixties, 1969 to be precise, animal laws were very poor. John Rendall purchased a little lion cub from Harrods store in London. The lion came to be known as Christian and lived with John in his Chelsea flat on the famous Kings Road (back then, home to Mick Jaggar). The lion lived the high life and was loved by everybody until he got too big. Sadly a city is no place for a lion and it was recognized that he was too big. John made the right decision and Christian was integrated back into the wild in Kenya.

This is what happened one year later when John went back to see Christian…

Marlice Van Der Merwe and her orphaned lions

Marlice Van Der Merwe raised 15 orphaned lions on her dads farm in Namibia. When they got too big and started becoming the dangerous predators we all know about, she went with a group of Bushman friends in search of a new home for her adopted children.

These videos amaze me and they are only a small collection of videos showing how affectionate these beasts can really be. Sadly we can’t co-exist with them if they are in their original wild state.

Maybe one day I will get to hug a lion!